Mike Pence: “as the Congressman who represents Muncie, Indiana, and Delaware County, home to the most famous cat in the world, I rise…”

“as the Congressman who represents Muncie, Indiana, and Delaware County, home to the most famous cat in the world, I rise today for the awesome and important duty to pay a happy birthday wish to Garfield. Not President Garfield, but someone probably more famous in this day and age than that, a large, orange, slovenly, lazy cat, born in the mind of an Indiana native by the name of Jim Davis who, along with Garfield and literally dozens of artists and artisans, make their home near Muncie, Indiana, the world headquarters of Paws, Incorporated. It was, in fact, today in 1978 that the Garfield strip debuted in 41 U.S. newspapers. Several months after its launch, the Chicago Sun-Times abruptly canceled the Cat. Over 1,300 angry readers, it is reported, immediately demanded that Garfield be reinstated. As they say, the rest is history. Today, 263 million readers across the globe read Garfield in 2,570 newspapers every day. Recently, Guinness World Records named this cat, Garfield, the most widely syndicated comic strip in the world. It all comes proudly from east central Indiana. It is said that people relate to Garfield because Garfield, in many ways, is them. "He's a human in a cat suit," his creator Jim Davis likes to say. Garfield loves TV and he hates Mondays. He would rather pig out than work out. In fact, his passion for food and sleep is matched only by his aversion to diet and exercise, a cat after my own heart.”